


Return Of The Old Gods

by Omicron_The_IceQueen



Category: Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types, Sonic the Hedgehog AU
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Other, fighting the dark
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-20
Updated: 2014-01-20
Packaged: 2018-01-09 09:24:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1144307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Omicron_The_IceQueen/pseuds/Omicron_The_IceQueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From battles of old, former gods were killed and trapped, most all slowly forgotten about... until reawakened. After being release for the first time in thousands of years, the god of the wind has to depend on mortals in the strange new modern world, one surviving Guardian and a language master in training.</p><p>...and they discover that the Darkness of old is still trying to concur the world, wither it remembers him or not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

(Over three thousand years ago on Mobius)

 

The roar in the wind didn’t just come from the raging hurricane that was currently biting and tearing into the land. There was a voice like no mortal, anthro or human or something in between could make. It was apart of the winds making up this eye-less storm that blocked out the sky beyond the horizon and turned day into night. Fires

 

Lightning flicked out and struck here and there and anywhere it could, the near constant thunder adding a thrumming pulse to the storm. This was far from the only storm that had stuck these lands, or in the world for that matter. Just nothing this powerful had ever been seen by echidna eyes, not even by these anthros’ bravest explorers. This storm was as unnatural as it was natural.

 

 _This_ was a storm fueled by the rage of a god.

 

“Hold him!”

 

“We can’t!”

 

“You have to-we have to-”

 

“ ** _You can never hold a god you fools!_** ” The creature, or being, that was not only in the center or the storm, but responsible for it, roared again. At his words the wind did the impossibly and picked up even more around his feet, knocking over those that were using enchanted black chains in an attempt to hold him. He grabbed the last chain that wasn’t a part of him naturally and yanked, sending the person clinging to it flying in more than one way before.

 

A long tail lashed out behind the black form as he turned away from the trap and launched into a run, heading for a certain echidna temple and shrine. He was fully intending to claim a debut owed to him by the local god.

 

Grated the storm wasn’t the best way to get attention but he was so boiled mad at whoever had declared war on him, yet didn’t show their face. Destroying nearly all of his temples and the surrounding villages within the last day. He couldn’t get the images out of his head. The monks in the mountain with their symbolic golden robs stain in red. The priestess and her followers burned in the plains. All the people who had looked to him for protection, the mothers and fathers, daughters and sons... all murdered by someone he could not lay his claws on or sink his fangs into.

 

“ ** _Enerjak!_** ” the god of the wind and air bellowed the demand for the other god, slowing from his run and reforming into a solid form. Towering over the scattering, started and frightened echidna anthros at his feet.

 

Standing at twenty five feet the god was a rich golden shade (the reason the monks choose that color) for the most part with his stomach, lower chest and muzzle a more coppery shade. At the moment his normally blue tattoo like marking were black, not including the raging storm, it was a visible sign of his coiling anger. And his long tail was lashing back and forth, just before it hit anyone it went transparent and passed through the priests and temple attendants.

 

He hadn’t lost himself to the anger to the point where he would stop caring about the innocent. These people hadn’t betrayed him.

 

Red eyes, more orbs with no pupils, narrowed as his call wasn’t answered right away. The arched quills on his head and down his back rattled, he had always liked an anthro hedgehog like appearance like his siblings. None of his normal silver chains were visible right now, fully absorbed for any possible fight.

 

The main temple doors in front of him, six of his strides, burst open and the echidna god of war and protection charged out. His power staff in one hand and poison spear in the other ready to defend his followers as any real god should. Blood red in color he was one of those that looked more mortal than godly. Just like any echidna anthro…that was a least twenty something feet tall too. The long spines that nearly dragged on the ground hand gold and black rings going down from base to end.

 

Enerjak paused, jerking his spears up in surprise so not to impale the other god, “ ** _Sonic?_** ”

 

“ ** _Someone is murdering my people, my heirs,_**” The elemental god paused, his expressions changing from rained in rage to surprise.

 

Enerjak looked up as the hurricane above formed an eye at last as it slipped out of Sonic’s hold. He turned back and his violet eyes widened under his battle mask, reaching out with the hand that had his staff, now stored away with his Chaos power, to catch the other god as he staggered forward and away from the living darkness that just impaled the golden Sonic.

 

“ ** _No!_** ” Flipping his spear around Enerjak impaled the dark god that wasn’t fully formed yet. The elements were the most important of the gods, those of air and water even more. If they died, then so did the world and all it’s people...

 

Ignoring the shriek of pain from the living darkness, Enerjak grabbed Sonic’s arm and pulled it over his shoulders before teleporting away to the one place he knew could heal a god. To save his ally as well as all his mortal followers that depended on breathing to live.


	2. Here and now

 

It was the first _hot_ day, when spring was just melting into summer. The land around the Great Tether chain had fanned out green in the trees and in the bushes, the ground that was covered in the carpet grass. Climbing vines were re-working themselves up both buildings as well as the massive chain that held the _floating island_ from wondering away, it drifted from one direction to another but always anchored down. It was rumored that Angel Island, as it had been named by the old Echidna line of Guardians that lived up there, had been anchored for three thousand years. Before that, the island had drifted in the winds around the world and some of the inner Zones.

 

There was a small town near the base of the Great Tether, around it really. Right next to the chain was a park of sorts, around a half a mile and circled around the tether itself. The park had some eight mini barges, the hover crafts were deactivated at the moment as they were being loaded up. Within the day the tithing train would make its way up to the island, the traditional peace offering not only to the Guardian clan living up there, but also the dragons that lived on Angel Island.

 

Currently, as the last of supplies were loaded, a young woman was tightening her laces up on the right boot. She was sitting up on the first craft, a metallic silver backpack of sorts rested over her shoulders. Tugging the last part of the laces, she over balanced fell backwards.

 

“Ow!” Alaina yelped form within the half full container.

 

After a moment a large hand with black claws reached in and, grasping a forearm, hauled the human back up, “There you go ‘Lain. Don’t want the Guardian thinking this is an arranged mirage tithing.” The big anthro chuckled, his long ‘mustache’ of black wire-like whiskers quivering with his amusement as the walrus anthro helped the young woman onto her feet.

 

“Thanks Tusks.” Alaina smiled up at the big walrus, pushing her many brown braids and the beads woven in them, out of her eyes to get a good look at the old anthro, “The last thing I need is to be stuck in one place, but then again there are a lot of runes up there.” She pointed upwards, meaning the great floating island that was at the other end of giant tether.

 

Tusks, as he was known for mostly irony, barely had one and a half of his once impressive set of tusks. The left one only had about a third of ivory and the other was half the size, both of the near black anthro’s tusks were chipped as well. But that was hardly a handicap for the man, he was tall and massive with muscles rather than fat thanks to over thirty years of varying work in assorted mechanical jobs, and fifteen of those years in the end of the old civil war of Mobius.

 

He was a lone father, and foster father to many that were as much apprentices as an extension of Tusks’ family. Several of his charges were working here today, right now hurrying along with that last packages with other youth form the small town.

 

Tusks reach down and patted Alaina’s braided head, grinning as she ducked with annoyance, “Let me check your pack before you go. Can have your Aunt any more annoyed with me than she is.” He said and after leading the shorter human to the side and out of the way of Rotor and his giggle gaggle of sisters.

 

“I’m glad I’m a translator. Ah, no offence dad.” Alaina added, knowing the old anthro liked the name. Besides, he was the closest thing to a father Alaina ever had, and family titles weren’t held in very strict terms in this region. Alaina herself had been called ‘daughter,’ ‘granddaughter,’ ‘Aunty’ and ‘sister’ by assorted people all her life. For some reason this annoyed her own biological aunt greatly.

 

“Everyone has their own talent,” Tusks said with his normal, ever present amusement as he worked, claws moving delicately on the silver ‘backpack,’ “Personally, I think you take after your mother.”

 

Alaina gave a smile over her shoulder, as much for the compliment as for the older man himself, “All good?”

 

“Yep.” Tusks nodded closing a panel. “How long are you up?” he paused and added with half lidded eyes and a knowing expression, “Did you tell your Aunt that you were going up, or for how long?”

 

The young woman gave the older anthro an all too innocent look she knew wouldn’t work on him, “I’m going to be up for as long as it takes me to translate my required legions. Yes I told her, and no I didn’t tell her.” With that she ducked around with a, “Loves and hugs dad! Got a tithing train to beat! Bye Rotor!”

 

Rotor, a few heads shorter than his father but still a good six feet, turned, smiled and linked his hands. As soon as Alaina jumped to put a foot on his linked hands- kissing her fingers and putting them to the anthro’s head in farewell. The younger of the two present walrus Anthros heaved up, throwing his friend a good eleven feet up. Rotor watched with hand shading his eyes as Alaina extended her glider’s wings, the small booster erupting to life for a moment to give that first all important moment of thrust.

 

And she was gliding, following the air stream of the rising tithing train.

 

Rotor turned to his father, “Are you going to call Lain’s Aunt?”

 

“Eh, give it a few days.” Tusks waved his right hand in dismissal before turning his attention to his ‘herd’ of youth that were in his care for the day as well as his own adoptive family, “Alright you all! Back to the other side of the park, let’s get some ice cream!”

 

Above with one hand on the guiding bar, the other pulling her helmet and goggles in place, Alaina could still hear the cheer on the ground. All too soon she was in proper air currents and could sway away from the hover crafts, letting them transform into their flight modes to make the long journey upwards, fallowing the Great Tether up to Angel Island.

 

Alaina held off on turning on her music, spending a good half of the trip in the joy of riding on the air streams. This was a different kind of joy, a different kind of fun for her instead of the challenge of decoding sometimes long dead languages. _This_ was more like... liberation!

 

After all, defying gravity had that effect on those who weren’t naturally gifted with wings of their own.

 

Flying up to Angel Island was one thing, _landing_ on Angel Island was quite another thing. You could either A: follow the tithing train exactly in its long climb to just above the main, if dead, volcano and hover over it’s slopes down into the island to the designated landing spot. Or B: brave the torrents of sometimes near hurricane wings that were the first defenses of the floating island.

 

Or you could cheat, like Alaina happily did every time.

 

‘How’ you may ask do you cheat? When there was no teleportation devices commonly known as a warp rings active on the island?

 

It helped to have a glider, which was small, light and greatly more maneuverable than most things. Since it, well, glided on the air not punched through it, and thus could get blow off coarse unexpectedly with no fore warning because the polite couldn’t actually _feel_ the air changing. The single person glider Tusks had made for Alaina so long ago could slip into some of the large, wind warn and horizontal canyons to be pushed up in relatively safely.

 

It wasn’t a walk in the park, one had to be experienced, or have a lot of pure dumb luck to make it without clipping a wing or some other body part at some points. Yet make it Alaina did, and with only three near death dives instead of five! She was improving.

 

The young woman who intended to be a language master didn’t land in the middle of the island where the most ruins were. No, that would be rude and, well, possibly fatal depending if there were any visiting Guardians. They were a picky bunch of people no matter what type of anthro they were.

 

Strange that there was no human Guardians, law enforcement officers and soldiers but never a true Guardian. Alaina thought about for a while as she circled, waiting for the tithing train to come up and she could fallow it down to the edge of the jungle.

 

The young woman dropped her feet first as she started to land, carefully controlling the fold of her wings. At the last second they collapsed into backpack form again as Alaina landed. She stumbled, not as graceful as other in Tusks gluiding class.

 

But, no one saw that.

 

“ _Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah...!_ ”

 

“EEEEEEAAAAHH!!” Alaina answered the battle roar with a scream of panic, “ _Big Red it’s me!!_ ”

 

The living projectile somehow altered its course mid flight but only slightly. Bodies collided with a _thump_ of flesh on flesh and then a _thud_ as the two bodies dropped to the ground. For a long, long few moments nothing happened and then there was a wheezing gasp from under the red figure that pushed up on his elbows and one knee.

 

“Chaos frag it Alaina, I could have killed you!” The male anthro said, almost yelled, brushing spines out of his face and glaring down with narrowed mauve eyes, irises a pale purple shade. The young woman slapped up at him making Knuckles sit back and then stand.

 

“And...this is what I get for bringing up the tithing?” the slightly younger teen demanded when she could properly inhale and inflate her lungs once more. She paused for a moment and grabbed at the offered hand to be hauled up to her feet.

 

“I’m sorry, there’s been a lot of poachers coming up here lately.” Knuckles said, holding onto Alaina’s shoulder to make sure she wouldn’t fall over.

 

Alaina made a face up at him before shrugging out of the silver pack on her back that held her guilder and subspace pocket for her supplies. The young woman checked over it to be sure there was no damage, “Gee thanks, half growing up with you and you think I’m a poacher?”

 

The echidna looked skyward, “Gods and Chaos help me I’ll be hearing about this for a while.”

 

“Damn right!” The human said as she pulled her pack back on and tightened the straps again. Alaina rarely went around without her guilder and integrated computer now a days. It was much easier as well as cheaper to travel with the guilder. It was a tad bit longer sometimes, but the time was good for thinking, reviewing lesions and decoding Not to mention she could come up to the great floating island whenever she wanted instead of riding up on the tithing train.

 

“Any food instead of just seeds?” the taller anthro asked poking one of the large boxes with a finger before working one of the bone spurs on the back of the same hand into a seem. He pried the lid open to peer in, and then smiled as he recognized the bags of multi colored spheres that lay within.

 

“Thought you might like those,” Alaina grinned and jumped onto Knuckles’ back, only semi avoiding his spines, wrapping her arms around her friend’s neck from behind and bracing her knees on his hips. “Tusks convinced the winery to donate this season. There’s actually a large crate of bottles from last year!”

 

Knuckles gave a purr like rumble at that, remembering the few bottles Alaina had flown up herself to share with him for the fall solstice. The echidna leaned forward as he reached back to get Alaina higher on his back and in his center of balance, “I’m just glad they don’t expect these back right away down below.”

 

“You know I’ll help Big Red.” Alaina said as she flipped her visor down, ready to access the invoice of the tithing inventory, “That makes three of us-” She started to add.

 

“Two.” Knuckles interrupted, going still with his arms still in the container. He didn’t move as Alaina froze, stopping mid-move as she was about to playfully tug at his spines. “Mother’s gone... I found her in the crystal halls.” The young Guardian admitted quietly.

 

For several long moments there were only the sounds of the jungle around them. From leaves rustling in the breezes that came over the edge, to the buzzing and clicking industry of so many hundreds of insects. A bird’s rising call was cantered distant warbles that rolled over the island from two male dragons trying to attract a mate.

 

Alaina dropped down to the ground, sliding off Knuckles’ back as her visor clicked back up. Standing there with one of her hands loosely holding a spine, the other flat on red fur. She didn’t say anything and neither did Knuckles. Alaina was absorbing the meaning behind his words as she rested her head in the middle of his back, on his spine.

 

“Big Red... I...” She reached her arms around the anthro from behind, but was unable reach completely around anymore like when they were both kids.

 

Knuckles was built mostly like the classic echidna Guardians, though not towering he was still pretty tall at six feet. He had board shoulders and chest, powerful arms and legs, Knuckles looked a bit older than his 23 years, and had the strength to give some people (namely poachers) nightmares. The Guardian’s namesakes were spurs, or rather bone spikes that came out of the back of his hands just behind the knuckle line. It let him deliver a powerful punch to say the least.

 

How the mutation was supported and didn’t tear up bone mechanics in Knuckles’ hands, Alaina wasn’t sure. It wasn’t like he’d had time to go get a couple of X-rays the few times Knuckles had gone down to see what it was like on the surface and to get a few supplies with his mother.

 

Knuckles turned enough to reached back and pull the human around to return the offered hug properly, “Help me get these things to stores, and then we can go to the Crystal Halls before dinner.”


End file.
